Today I smile as I watch Dwayne point me out to people sitting near him. I know he’s telling them about his wife who just got a graduate degree in educational leadership.
I push my way through the crowd, keeping my eyes on him as he weaves his way toward me. He grabs me when I get close to him, and he rubs his cheek against mine, his mustache tickling my cheek. As he sings “My Girl” in my ear, we sway and shuffle in a celebration dance.
We’re joined by Thomasine and Stephanie and their husbands. We pose for photographs in our robes with the hoods dangling down our backs.
Back in the parking lot, I pull off my graduation garments and fold them in my saddlebag. Under them, I’ve worn jeans and a Harley T-shirt. We rode our motorcycles to the graduation. Now I sit sideways on my seat and put on my boots.
As I get dressed for riding home, Dwayne trades out his polished cowboy boots for his battered engineer boots. “My master wife! I always knew you could do anything you wanted to.”
I lean over his seat and kiss him. “You put up with me being gone a lot working and going to class.”
“I always want you to do whatever makes you happy.”
For lunch, we’re meeting Dwayne’s friend James, who worked with him at San Jose Harley until he quit to take a job at a custom motorcycle shop. He often joins us on Sunday rides. As we sit side by side in a booth, we watch him come in the front door.
He sits down and reaches across the table to shake my hand in congratulations. “Damn, girl, I always knew Dwayne had a smart wife.”
Dwayne drapes his arm across my shoulders. “I tell you, James, you gotta go to Missouri and get you a teacher for a wife.”
The two of them tell stories about customers they deal with each day, from Hell’s Angels to orthodontists. They both agree the orthodontists are worse. Dwayne tells us about a group of doctors who bought chaps and jackets for Sturgis and then drove their cars over them in the driveway to make them look weathered. “They didn’t want to have to ride all the way to North Dakota, so they trailered their scooters.”
Finally, the waitress picks up our dirty dishes and drops the ticket on the table. James reaches for it and says it’s his gift to me. “Hey, man, Don from the Harley shop said you quit last week. What are you going to do?”
I move away from Dwayne and turn to look at him. “You’re quitting the Harley shop?”
He doesn’t look at me but keeps his eyes on James. “Yeah, it ain’t been the same since Dennis left to take that job in Hollywood.”
On the ride home, I think about how he quit his job at the Harley dealership in Texas, which ended up precipitating our move to California. That job lasted three years, and now he’s been working at San Jose Harley four years. I know we’ll have to talk about his making the decision without me.
In the kitchen I pour us glasses of iced tea and sit at the table. Dwayne pulls out a chair, plopping down in it. He moves his glass in circles on the table, the condensation on the glass making watery streaks on the wood. He concentrates on the glass without talking.
I put my hand on his wrist and stop the movement of the glass. “We’ve got to talk about your job, you know.”
He reaches in his pocket and pulls out his cigarettes, hesitating before tapping one out.
I get our one ash tray out of the cabinet and put it in front of him. He usually smokes outside or in the garage. He thanks me, since he knows I hate the smell of tobacco in the house. When I was a child with a smoker as a mother, I lived in a smoke-filled house with the tang of nicotine choking me and stinking my clothes.
He lights his cigarette and smokes without talking for a few minutes. “You know I always work a job like I own the business. But I don’t take anyone’s shit.”
“You always seemed to love your work at San Jose Harley.” I run my finger down my chilled glass and watch him, his face in the shadows of the bright sunlight behind him.
“I did until Dennis left. I was supposed to be parts manager in his place.”
I nod. He continues, “Then they hired Richard. That son of a bitch rides my ass all day long.”
“You quit?”
“Yeah, we had a blowup last week, and I quit before I kicked his ass.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He sits up straight in the hard chair. “I had to figure out what I was going to do next to bring in money.”
I remember all of the ways he’s made money over the years. One time I came home to find someone painting our house, even though we had no money to pay for it. Dwayne told me he’d rebuilt the man’s Harley engine in exchange for his painting our house before we sold it.
Now he gets up from the table and brings a short stack of photographs to the table. He flips them on the table one at a time. “This here’s a ’57 Chevy John King bought last week. He’s going to pay me to rebuild it.”
He grabs his sketch pad and draws how he’s going to restore the car’s exterior. He tells me John is going to pay him $10,000. “You see, baby, I’ll be bringing in money, just not a regular paycheck.”
I take his hand. “I was just worried you didn’t talk to me. We always have to be honest with each other.”
“I sometimes forget you’re not like my other wives. You love me just the way I am.”
A few hours later, I’m standing in my principal Nancy’s backyard with a margarita in my hand. She has presented the three of us who’ve just completed our graduate degree with a toast. Now we’re all relaxing with drinks and engaging in party small talk. The crowd bumping into each other represents the dissimilar groups that make up my friends. Teachers and administrators in Bermuda shorts and wrinkled cotton shirts chat with bikers in leather vests and scuffed boots, with tattoos covering the flesh turning pink in the hot afternoon sun.
In the corner of the yard, Dwayne holds a Corona in one hand, with his other hand gesturing while he tells a story. The circle of people around him laugh. I know he’s probably telling an anecdote about one of our motorcycle trips. During the two years since my motorcycle accident, we’ve gone on several long-distance road trips. Las Vegas Bike Fest. Hollister Rally. Arizona Bike Week. Loughlin River Run. And home to Texas every July for his mother’s birthday.
A short blond woman with her hair tucked under a pink bandana joins me. We stand and observe his storytelling for a few moments. She finally says, “He’s quite a guy, your husband. We all love him.”
“Yeah, it was love at first sight for me.”
We move back a few steps to stand under the shade of the deck awning. She sips her beer and asks, “How long you two been married?”
“Seven years next month.” I swirl my frozen margarita in its glass.
“No shit. I thought it was at least twenty years. You two seem so connected … like you spent your whole lives together.”
I stare at my husband across the narrow yard, and my heart races the way it did in Chili’s years ago seeing him for the first time on a blind date. He feels my eyes on him and looks up at me. We smile at each other across the crowd.
I make my way through the crowd and join him. He is talking about the time we rode home from Texas and hit a strong headwind outside Palm Springs. I stand and listen, adding details when he asks for them.
Skimming my hand down his back, I tuck my hand in the back of his belt. He shifts his weight until he leans against me. One of the women I work with asks me if I’m going to teach senior English again next year. Our motorcycle friends drift away as the talk shifts to school and students.
The sound of motorcycle motors interrupts us. We walk to the driveway to watch C.C. and Gail shut down their motors, restoring silence to the neighborhood. C.C. lifts me off the ground when she hugs me. The four of us go to the backyard and join the party.
At one point near the end of the evening, Nancy finds me in the kitchen, where I’m helping clean up. We move into the living room, where the noise from the backyard is more muted.
I drop onto the couch, and she slumps in the
chair by me. “I wanted to talk to you about what your plans are now.”
I lean forward. “I enjoyed being a literacy coach last year, so no immediate plans to find another job.”
She hesitates and then says, “I’d like you to consider using that new administrator’s certificate.”
“I’ve never thought of myself as anything but a teacher.”
“You’d be a hell of a principal.” She says she’ll be wanting an assistant principal in a couple of years, so I should think about it.
I do think about it on the ride home after all of the goodbyes and congratulations are finished.
Later that night, we are sitting in bed watching Loony Tunes, my head on Dwayne’s shoulder. I sit up and mute the television. “How would you feel about me becoming an administrator? A vice principal.”
He turns to me. “Is that something you’d want to do?”
“I think so.” I stop and say, “I’d make a lot more money as an assistant principal. Nancy said it’d be a couple of years before a job opens here, but I’d like to try to find one now.”
“I may be an old redneck, but I’ve got no problems being married to a woman with money.” He grins at me. “You can be the breadwinner, baby.”
We switch off the lamp, and I talk in the dark about the job of leading a school. The long hours. My being busy in the summer.
He assures me all he wants is for me to do what I want.
Over the next few weeks, I look online for administrator jobs, and after an interview, I’m finally offered one in the Central Valley near Modesto. We ride over the hills into the dry and hot valley one Sunday, and we look at the high school where I’ll be working. We get a newspaper and sit at Starbucks, looking through the classified section for houses to rent. Dwayne reminds me it has to have a garage, the bigger the better. He’ll work on cars and motorcycles at home as his full-time job.
I find the house with the large garage on the day I sign my contract. I call Dwayne, and he says he’s good with me making the decision. “You’re the boss, baby.”
We move on a sweltering July day, and soon all of our belongings are unloaded in our new home. It will take Dwayne another week to bring all of his tools and stuff out of his old garage.
Before schools starts, Stephanie comes for a visit to see our new house. She rides behind Dwayne for a trip to Lake Tahoe. That night over dinner she tells us she’s leaving John and moving into an apartment.
I lay my hand on hers. “We’re here if you need us.”
One day in the fall I come home from my new job to find an unfamiliar motorcycle in the garage. I drop my purse on the patio table and walk to the separate workshop. I can hear the welder buzzing inside the building. I step into the door and wait until he sees me. He’s bent over a car fender and shaping the edge into a smooth roll of steel. He looks up and turns off the welder.
“Hey, where’d you get the new Harley in the garage?” I ask as I lean against the workbench.
“I got it from Desmond. It’s a ’49 panhead. Always wanted one.” He pulls off his welding helmet.
“Are you selling it for him?”
“No, I bought it with the money I got from John for rebuilding his Chevy.” He pushes the welder against the wall.
“All of it?” I move to stand beside him.
“Yeah, but I’m going to make a lot of money on this scooter.” He describes how much panheads are selling for and how he’s going to fix it up.
I cut his talk short. “I thought we were going to save that money for a down payment on a house.”
He promises me he’ll get it sold in a month. We shake hands on the deal, and Dwayne locks the workshop door behind us.
The weeks dash by. I spend my days dealing with student discipline and an endless schedule of meetings. Dwayne spends his restructuring the panhead. The month deadline for selling it passes. He puts it on eBay and waits for a response.
I force myself not to ask about it or if he’s sold it yet.
Finally, I come home six months later to find the panhead gone. When I walk in the back door, I see Dwayne sitting at the kitchen table with a stack of forms in front of him. “What happened to the panhead?”
“I took it back to Desmond at Motor Shop. He gave me my money back and a little extra for upgrading the engine.”
“What are those?” I gesture at the stack of papers in front of him.
“Insurance for my new job.” He reaches down and picks up something from a chair seat. He tosses it to me.
I hold it up. It’s a shirt. On the back it says Mitchell Modesto Harley-Davidson. The name tag on the front pocket says Dwayne Black. “A new job, huh?”
“I really liked Art, who owns the dealership, and he needs a guy around the place who knows how to work on old Harleys.” He continues, “I think this may be the Harley dealership I can work at for a long time.”
EASTBOUND
The insistent ringing of the phone jolts us from our sleep at two in the morning on New Year’s Day. I fumble in the dark for my cell phone on the table by me. Light blinds me as Dwayne turns on the lamp.
“Hello,” I mumble.
“Mom, oh, Mom,” Stephanie sobs in my ear.
I suddenly sit up and swing my legs off the bed. “Where are you? What’s happend?”
“I’m okay. I’m just so scared and all alone. I want to come home. Why did I move to Washington, DC?” The sound of her crying fills my ear as she weeps thousands of miles away from me in California. She sobs about being on her own in a big new city and divorced. She has spent Christmas by herself for the first time in her life.
She surprised us with a new job in DC after Thanksgiving, saying it was a chance to get away from Austin, where John still lived. Dwayne and I had flown to Austin and loaded her belongings on a U-Haul. Then we’d driven to Arlington, Virginia, where she’d found an apartment. We’d flown home the next day.
Now I sway back and forth with the phone at my ear as if I were rocking her as a baby again. “I’m here, sweetie, I’m here.”
Dwayne sits up in the bed behind me. He leans over my shoulder. “Is she okay?”
“Yes,” I whisper to him. In my ear, Stephanie tells me a story of a broken New Year’s Eve date and no friends like in Austin. I lean toward him and murmur quietly, “She’s homesick. For us.”
He quickly goes to the closet and starts to dress. “I’ll pack us some clothes. I don’t know if we can get a flight this late, but we can go to the airport right now. I got some money from that last car I sold to pay for some tickets.”
He lifts the suitcase off the closet shelf. He lays it on the bed by me. He begins to fold shirts into it. He opens a dresser drawer and pulls out socks and underwear and tosses them into the suitcase.
I shake my head no at him, closing the suitcase on the bed by me. He sighs loudly in frustration and slides his feet into his black corduroy house shoes. He shuffles softly down the hall to the kitchen, and I hear him making coffee.
Stephanie talks and cries while I listen. She repeatedly apologizes for making us move her from Austin to DC after her divorce.
We talk about how hard it is to be divorced and alone. I tell her how lucky I was to have her when I launched out into the world alone. She reminds me that Dwayne saved us both. Finally, I hear her blow her nose. Her voice is calmer once the tears end. “Where’s Dwayne?”
“He’s smoking and drinking coffee. He’s half-packed to come save you.”
“Can I talk to him?”
I yell his name. He comes into the room with a cup in one hand. A cigarette burns in the other. Smoke curls though the air around his hand. He rarely smokes in the house, so I know how worried he is about her. I silently hand him the phone.
As I pour a cup of coffee in the kitchen, I can hear the murmur of his voice. The slow drawl of his voice fills the air. I lean back against the counter and close my eyes. Words float down the hall. “I love you, Steph. Do you want to come here? For a visit or to live?”
&nb
sp; I curl up on the couch as they continue the conversation. Soon I hear him laugh—that lazy rumbling laugh that always warms me. I hear the snap of his lighter when he fires up another cigarette. I lie down on the smooth leather and try to relax. I close my eyes.
I feel the cushion by me dip with his weight as he lies down behind me. He curls around me. He lays his leg over me. I press myself against him. He kisses my cheek.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s better now.” He tells me that she knows she can come here to be with us. “She’s like her mom. She’s damn independent and won’t give up.”
“You’re a good dad, old man.” I roll over to face him. I kiss him.
“She’s my kid, and I love her. Hell, I knew she was going to be a project when we got married. I just had to love her through the bad stuff.”
We discard clothes all the way down the hall to the bedroom. We sleep skin to skin all night long.
The next morning Dwayne announces he told Stephanie we would be riding the Harleys to DC in July to visit her. “You’re ready to ride from the Pacific to the Atlantic. We can check on our girl at the end of the trip.”
We spend the next six months planning the trip. It will include a stop in Texas to visit his mother on her birthday. I mark the route on the atlas. We call Stephanie every Sunday to update her on our plans. I hang a map of the United States on the wall behind my desk in my office and mark our route in red
On a foggy Northern California morning in June, with a burst of noise, we roll onto the highway at dawn. I ride down the white line of an endless procession of roads. Dwayne shadows me on my right. We shift in unison. Across deserts and mountains our motors harmonize.
We develop a sign language all our own. Dwayne forms a triangle with his hands when he’s ready for pie and coffee. A raised right hand is a bathroom break. By three each day we find a motel with a pool. We float in the cool water, letting our tired muscles relax. We fall asleep in each other’s arms. The alarm rings at five in the morning. We ride into the sunrise, and we move relentlessly east toward Washington, DC.
She Rode a Harley Page 12